The report rendered a startling verdict: Members of the Rutland City Police Department could have prevented the death of 19-year-old trainee Jessica Ebbighausen during a high-speed chase.
Then-commander Sam Delpha had reviewed radio logs and body camera video and interviewed the more experienced officers who were working that day in 2023. He concluded emphatically in a nine-page internal investigative report that their mistakes left Ebbighausen — and the public at large — needlessly exposed to the collateral danger of an unwarranted high-speed pursuit.
By March 10, Delpha had submitted his findings to Chief Brian Kilcullen, who told the city’s citizen police commission that he would review the report and convey its conclusions in a few weeks’ time.
That didn’t happen. Instead, Kilcullen shared the report with no one. Not the three officers whose actions the report criticized. Not Mayor Mike Doenges, who said the chief privately conveyed “bits and pieces” of the findings. Not the citizen police commission, whose job it is to provide oversight of the department. Not even Rutland County State’s Attorney Ian Sullivan, who is prosecuting the 22-year-old man, Tate Rheaume, whose pickup struck Ebbinghausen’s cruiser head-on while he was fleeing another officer.
Kilcullen told Seven Days on Monday that he decided not to disclose the findings while the aggravated murder case against Rheaume remains pending because it could “switch the focus” away from Rheaume’s conduct and toward his department.
But, in doing so, Kilcullen sat on a report that could damage the state’s case. He also shielded his department from public scrutiny and delayed, potentially for years, the chance for police agencies to learn from the mistakes that appear to have contributed to the death of a young officer.
The report did not come to light until Rheaume’s defense attorney, David Sleigh, learned of it in October when he deposed police involved in the pursuit. He then subpoenaed the document, and it’s now part of the public record in the criminal case. In an interview, Sleigh said the report undercuts the state’s case against Rheaume and argued that officials had skirted their legal obligation to disclose it. “I read it, and my jaw just went slack,” he said.
Two criminal justice experts who reviewed Delpha’s report at the request of Seven Days were critical of the city’s response. Choosing to not disclose the findings in particular reflects a “real failure of leadership,” said Christy Lopez, a Georgetown University law professor who oversaw U.S. Department of Justice investigations into police agencies during the Obama administration.
“Part of this is about accountability,” Lopez said. “But just as importantly, in my view, is making sure that you change things moving forward.”
Rheaume smashed into Ebbighausen’s cruiser on July 7, 2023, while he was being pursued by Officer Jared Dumas. Despite having worked for just several weeks, Ebbighausen was driving to assist the pursuit, accompanied by her trainer, then-corporal Richard Caravaggio. Neither Ebbighausen nor Caravaggio were wearing seat belts when Rheaume crossed the center line of heavily traveled Woodstock Avenue at roughly 80 miles per hour, according to Vermont State Police, who conducted the criminal crash investigation. Ebbighausen was thrown from the cruiser and died on the scene; Caravaggio was injured but later returned to work in the department.
Ebbighausen had dreamed of wearing a police uniform since she was a young girl. A community fundraiser for her family took in more than $55,000, and hundreds of first responders from across New England, as well as Gov. Phil Scott, attended her public funeral. Her family did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
“Words cannot express who Jessica truly was or describe the loss we are feeling right now,” Delpha said during opening remarks at the funeral. “Jessica is a hero to her family and her community, and we will always honor her sacrifice.”
The state initially charged Rheaume, of Salisbury, with felony negligent operation and attempt to elude, both with death resulting. Nearly a year later, in April 2024, Sullivan added a new charge of aggravated murder, the most severe charge under state law, which carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole. Rheaume has been detained in state prison since then.
Rutland police ramped up their internal investigation following Rheaume’s arraignment on the enhanced charge, Kilcullen told VTDigger at the time, though he declined to say then whether the findings would be made public.
The task of reviewing his fellow officers’ actions on that painful day fell to Delpha, a department veteran. He has since retired, and Seven Days was unable to reach him for this story.
His report describes a series of low-level police calls that day in July 2023 between Rutland officers and Rheaume that centered on Rheaume’s presence at residences linked to the mother of his children. The first two calls ended peacefully with Rheaume’s departure. During those interactions, witnesses explained to police that Rheaume’s mental health had been declining as he stopped taking medications.
A third caller reported Rheaume was inside another residence that he had entered without permission. Dumas went to the home and ordered Rheaume out. Dumas then called the mother of Rheaume’s children, who Rheaume claimed had given him permission to go inside, according to the internal report.
Dumas asked the woman how she wanted the police to proceed, according to a description of body camera footage included in the report. Dumas then said aloud the words “pursue charges,” at which point Rheaume ran to his truck and drove away. Dumas pursued.
The internal review scrutinized Dumas’ decision to chase Rheaume and found faults at multiple levels. Dumas radioed that he was investigating a burglary, but at that point he did not have evidence Rheaume had broken into the apartment or stolen any items, the report said.
Even if he had, burglary is not a violent felony. Under the department’s policy, it shouldn’t have prompted a chase.
“The death of
Officer Ebbighausen WAS preventable.”Rutland internal investigative report
Dumas turned on his lights and sirens and followed Rheaume through a parking lot and onto crowded streets, eventually reaching Woodstock Avenue, a busy, arterial road also known as Route 4.
“Someone at any rank should have stopped this pursuit,” Delpha wrote in the report. “Dumas did not ask permission to continue the pursuit, he was pursuing for burglary only, and Dumas knew Rheaume was operating the vehicle he was pursuing and knew his recent mental health issues.”
Ebbighausen and her supervisor, Caravaggio, left the station and traveled toward the pursuit from the opposite direction.
Delpha’s conclusions were unequivocal. Other officers’ decisions were “direct contributing factors” in causing the crash that killed Ebbighausen. He tallied 16 policy violations between four officers, including one for Ebbighausen, who he faulted for not wearing her seat belt.
“The death of Officer Ebbighausen WAS preventable,” Delpha’s report states. “This incident and more specifically the pursuit should have never happened.”
Dumas left the Rutland City Police Department last year for a job with the Rutland Town Police Department, where his father, Ed, is chief. The elder Dumas declined comment on their behalf last week, citing the ongoing criminal case.
“Being a police officer is sometimes like being hitched to a whipping post,” Ed Dumas said. “You just kind of take it until everything comes out in the wash.”
Caravaggio also declined to comment, as did the local police union.
Kilcullen, in an interview on Monday, could not say when he received Delpha’s report. But meeting minutes of the Rutland City Police Commission, a citizen oversight board, note that the chief briefed the panel on the report’s submission on March 10. “The Chief will be reviewing it over the next few weeks and will report out then,” the minutes state.
Kilcullen also told the commission that Delpha had begun using accrued leave time ahead of a June 1 retirement.
In the nine months since Kilcullen received his commander’s scathing report, the chief appears to have briefed only Mayor Doenges on its contents.
Doenges told Seven Days last week that the chief had offered basic information about the internal investigation so that the mayor would not become a potential witness in the criminal case. Doenges was satisfied with that approach and said he trusts that Kilcullen has handled the report’s findings appropriately. He assumed that the police commission, which provides more detailed oversight of the department, had been more fully briefed on the investigation.
But the commission appears to have forgotten about Kilcullen’s March promise to fill them in. Chair Pat Brougham described the report in an email this week as “news to us.” She otherwise declined comment, citing the ongoing criminal case against Rheaume.
Another commissioner, former state senator Peg Flory, said members questioned Kilcullen about the report during a meeting on Monday. His answers didn’t allay Flory’s concerns. She said the report’s findings could have been shared in a closed-door session if the chief was worried about litigation. “It was disturbing that we didn’t get a copy of the report,” she said.
Reached again on Tuesday, the mayor said he now planned to do a “deeper dive” on the internal investigation with the chief later this week.
Kilcullen readily acknowledged to Seven Days that he’s done nothing with the document.
“The report has been reviewed by me, and that’s that,” he said.
Kilcullen emphasized that he does not endorse all of Delpha’s findings but refused to elaborate.
Since Ebbighausen’s death, the department has conducted general, periodic reviews on its policies around high-speed chases but has not studied the fatal incident itself, Kilcullen said. He believed the last policy review was held as recently as October, though he could not cite specific dates.
He said he worried that disclosing the report publicly could jeopardize the murder case against Rheaume. “My concern is the fair trial for the defendant,” Kilcullen said. “I don’t want to do anything to compromise that.”
That didn’t make sense to Sleigh, however, who contends that the report is “exculpatory” for his client because it faults police in the crash. The police had been obligated to disclose it to him and he should not have had to subpoena it, he said. He described the police actions as “the unabated demonization of Tate to protect the police.”
The details of the report haven’t dissuaded Sullivan, the prosecutor, from pursuing the most serious charge against Rheaume.
“Based on my review of those materials and all of the other evidence in the case, I look forward to presenting this case, including the aggravated murder charge, to a jury of Mr. Rheaume’s peers,” he told Seven Days in an email.
Ebbighausen was the youngest Vermont police officer ever killed in the line of duty, but she was not the first, nor the last, person to die during a police chase in the state. Nearly a year after her death, two men were killed in Colchester after crashing their SUV while fleeing Burlington and then Colchester police.
Interim Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke recalled earlier incidents in which bystanders were injured or killed in Chittenden County. He believes departments across the state should pursue suspects sparingly, only when the danger they pose outweighs the serious public safety risks involved in a chase.
Last year, Burke pushed for the state’s Law Enforcement Advisory Board, which he then chaired, to develop a model policy for police pursuits that could be adopted by departments statewide. Burke resigned from the board when he took Burlington’s interim police chief job in March, and the topic has not been deliberated since.
Current chair Trevor Whipple said the board plans to begin discussing it during its next meeting in January.
Burke said it’s imperative for police departments to learn from mistakes made during past pursuits.
“It’s really our duty to always be self-assessing and self-correcting,” he said.
Kilcullen expressed a similar message in the days after Ebbighausen’s death. Speaking at her funeral, he called for statewide improvements to mental health care and more accountability for repeat offenders.
“We have all tried to make sense of this tragedy, and we struggle with that,” Kilcullen said then. “It doesn’t make sense, but we must do everything we can to learn from this.”
“Pursuit of Justice? | An internal report faulted Rutland police officers for a car chase that resulted in their colleague’s death. The chief kept it quiet.”
